LIVING BACKWARDS 



in this hovel, and ate strawberries and cream and 

 shortcake, there where that pine table stood, while 

 the hail was pattering on the roof. No, I can be 

 a Rousseau to you, curious reader, but not to 

 Charlie. It is difficult to be as candid as- Rous 

 seau without being as objectionable. Charlie 

 could not understand if I told him that the ghost 

 of an old sweetheart had come back again with 

 me to the hovel and was going to eat strawberries 

 and cream again at that same table. 



Besides, just now he was caring more for that 

 yellow dog than for anything else on earth, or 

 perhaps in heaven, for that matter. That cur was 

 the only living thing that welcomed us when we 

 came to the station at Spelldown. She seemed 

 to sniff our predetermined vagabondage, and 

 began to wag a most familiar reciprocity, that 

 said, &quot; I am with you, boys.&quot; So audaciously 

 did she claim a prior acquaintance with Charlie 

 in some other state of existence, that I gave a 

 boy a dollar for her, and she wig-wagged with 

 boisterous and unmistakable manumission all the 

 way up to our destination. Before she had got 

 there Charlie had named her &quot; Samson &quot; with 

 reference to some dog ideal in his story-book, 

 and a day or two later I had to correct it, accord 

 ing to the facts, there being indubitable evidence 

 that the cur did not belong to the Samsonian 

 gender. So I suggested as more appropriate to 

 her character the name of &quot; Delilah,&quot; and Charlie, 

 with the felicity of blue-pencil infancy, instantly 

 converted it into &quot; Lilah &quot; for all time. 



